George Orwell was born in India, but raised and educated in England.

His real name is

actually Eric Arthur Blair, however he used George Orwell when he first started his
career as a writer. During WW2, he was deemed unfit for anything military wise but still
found a way to be involved in the war. During that time he worked as a journalist for the
BBC. That’s also when he wrote Animal Farm which led to even greater fame.
His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitarianism,
and support of democratic socialism. Orwell's work remains influential in popular
culture and in political culture, and the adjective "Orwellian"—
describing totalitarian and authoritarian social practices. When it comes to writing, he’s
been inspired mainly by the modern writer W. Somerset Maugham, as well as
Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Charles Dickens, James Joyce, Jonathan Swift and many
others.
Animal Farm is an allegorical novel and a great example of political satire published in
1945. The book tells the story of of a group of farm animals who rebel against their
human farmer Mr. Jones at Manor Farm, therefore one of the oldest and wisest pigs
called Old Major plans to start a rebellion right before he dies, so the animals can
overtake the farm and live freely and equally. Two of the pigs - Snowball and Napoleon
– help everyone achieve this goal. In the beginning everything is going great – the farm
name is now called Animal Farm, there is a new motto “four legs good, two legs bad”,
the smarter animals learn how to read and write, the work and food are distributed
evenly.
That is until the pigs, who consider themselves to be smartest, start taking more of the
resources, claiming they need to be healthier, which embodies the new political power.
It starts with getting milk and apples for themselves, it escalates to selling animal
products for human luxuries like whiskey. The pigs then get more violent and claim the
power to determine what truth is. During this time, some of the animals start realizing
that their current life is no batter than it was during the Rebellion. At some point,
Snowball declares that he wants to build a windmill to modernize the farm but Napoleon
disagrees and chases him out of the farm, declaring himself and the other pigs leaders.
Napoleon takes credit for the windmill idea and they start building it, but it collapses
during a storm. Although the walls are thin, Napoleon says that Snowball was the one
who sabotaged them and everyone who disagrees with him and supports Snowball is
met with instant death. After some time, Napoleon starts acting like a human – he
sleeps on a bed, drinks whiskey, trades with other farmers, principals that go totally
against Animalism.
After a battle between farmers and animals on Animal farm, Boxer gets wounded and
senses that his time has come. One day, he’s nowhere to be found so everyone thinks
he’s passed away but Napoleon actually sold his most loyal worker to a glue maker in
order to get money for whiskey – this action marks the moment in which the political
power that is Napoleon and his pig, completely defeats the animals. Years pass on
Animal Farm and pigs become more like humans – they walk on two legs, carrying
whips and wearing clothes. Eventually the seven principles of Animalism get reduced to
just one – “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal others”. There
comes at a time when the common animals look at Napoleon and his workers and can
no longer tell which are the pigs and which are the human beings.
Animal Farm isn’t set in a specific time, however it’s fair to assume the time period is
close to the Russian Revolution (1917-1945). Some of the themes include The
corruption of socialist ideals in the Soviet Union, the danger of a naïve working class
and others. As it is heavily inspired by the Russian Revolution and Soviet Union, most
of the characters correspond to various figures in real life. Mr. Jones, who acts as the
oppressor at the beginning of the novel, is an allegory of Tsar Nicholos II. Old Major,
who inspired the animals to start a rebellion, is an allegorical combination of both Karl
Marx, who is the founder of communism and Vladimir Lenin, who is the communist
leader in early Soviet Union. Napoleon is the allegory of Joseph Stalin, Snowball is his
rival, therefore his embodiment is Leon Trotsky. There are, of course, many others
allegories, but for one of the animals called Benjamin – a donkey – it’s assumed that
there is some of Orwell in his character. During the entire book, Benjamin remains
neutral, he can red and write as good as the pigs but refuses to do anything with it and
when mentioned, always makes remarks - "Life will go on as it has always gone on –
that is, badly".